Dubai’s stock market ended 2018 on Monday with a 25-percent annual loss, the worst year since the global financial crisis a decade ago, as the real estate and tourism sectors struggled.

The plunge in the Dubai Financial Market Index was the biggest among Gulf and Arab bourses amid signs of a slowdown in the emirate’s highly diversified economy.

But it was not as bad as in 2008 when the Dubai stock market dived 72 percent after the financial crisis triggered a debt problem for the emirate.

Source: AFP